


Picking

by honeyglass



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Kissing, Mild Gore, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-10 01:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18649975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyglass/pseuds/honeyglass
Summary: The Favor Set passes hands.





	Picking

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the corpse in irithyll that screams at you and all the questions that raised for me personally about the hollowing process

They stumble onto a streak of blood on the otherwise clean marble floors near the balcony and almost jump out of their skin when the smears lead to Lautrec. They call to him, but he's content to sit motionless on the floor, and this causes them to falter. They call again, with no response.

They inch closer, and when it finally seems as if he's not going to get up and attack, they put their weapon away. "All the fight gone out of you then?"

He's uncharacteristically quiet, and the initial shock is being replaced by a subtle sinking feeling. Their footsteps are the only sound as they walk to him, stopping squarely in front of him and bending down to look.

He's still breathing, but makes no motion to acknowledge them. They grab the prongs of his helmet to bend his head back a bit, and from the way he lets them do it with barely a groan of protest, they conclude he's gone hollow. Beyond hollow. "Oh, well. That's that then."

They plop themselves down in front of him and begin to work his gauntlets off. No sense in letting that fine craftsmanship waste away on a corpse. They work their fingers around the thick collar, and determine the neckpiece of his helmet extends underneath it. Removing it all would be no small task. "It's a good thing," they say to him, "That we have so much free time now. All the time in the world."

He groans again when they lay him down, with great effort, and again when they start searching for the clasps on his sides. "You're talkative for a dead body."

His fingers twitch in response. The undead takes the dagger, HIS dagger, from its holster on his hip and starts wiggling it inbetween the hinges of his torso. There's an element of grace to this, and it occurs to them there's no reason to be delicate with a hollow so far gone. He likely wouldn't even feel it if they accidentally dug too deep.

Still, they are careful. They manage to catch a leather strap and briefly weigh their options before slicing through. Andre could fix it. A few others, and they're able to work it open. The shirt he's wearing underneath is off-white, with rolled up sleeves, haphazardly tucked into a pair of equally worn dark brown pants that have obviously been faded in the sunlight. They think about him, or maybe someone else, hanging his pants on a laundry line or tree branch, and feel a pang of wistfulness.

Curiosity overtakes them, and they partially untuck his shirt from his belt line, lifting it up to look underneath. His skin is greying now, and has a strange texture, firm but just barely, yielding like a boiled egg, but he hasn't withered to nothing yet. The flesh they touch doesn't move back to where it was. New and old scars litter his body, which they weren't expecting. There's a mark close to his hip where it looks like someone's burned him with a pipe. He gurgles when they press on his stomach again, and they withdraw at the noise.

Gently, they dig their hand into the small of his back and lift him, scraping the armor against the floor as they wriggle it out from under and around him. The shoulders of his armor slip off a little easier, and they're moving down to his hips. The whole suit seems more ornamental than fit for battle, and the amount of effort it's taking to undress him is ridiculous. "Did you ever take this off? Who helped you get this on?"

Predictably, he is silent. The legs are also more simple, and soon he's been divested of every precious curve and bend of metal until only his helmet remains. They consider leaving it on him, out of some sense of privacy, but they do want the full set. When it comes off they inhale sharply, his eyes trained on theirs, but cloudy and vacant.

His eyes don't look at them, not really, but still move to watch as they pack up his armor in a nice neat pile and start threading a spare length of cloth through it to turn it into one convenient bundle. "You won't be needing these."

Typical of Carim, there's a knife tucked into his boot, and they decide to take that with them as well. The handle is old and well worn but the blade is sharp. They test it on their thumb and nod to themselves when they see the small red line. "You won't be needing this either."

They look back at him and take stock of his features. His skin was most likely not this grey before, but it's hard to tell. His hair is on the longer side, meticulously parted, probably meant to frame his face if he wasn't laying down, and thoroughly greyed out except for a few sections underneath, still a dark brown, almost black. No eyebrows, or at least sparse enough that it wouldn't matter whether they were actually there or not, and a thin upper lip that curves into a sizeable nose. He looks like some kind of albino bird, and they're leaning over him to get a closer look at his red-rimmed eyes when they realize what they're doing.

The distance between their lips and his gets smaller and smaller, and he's cold to the touch once they finally meet. He doesn't kiss back, can't, but they can feel the sudden sharp exhale from him on their own face, and they twist to get a better angle. It's like kissing a statue, and the pressure of his nose against their cheek urges them to press their upper body against him as they lean. They're rewarded with a moan bubbling up from his chest. His teeth feel pronounced underneath his lips; the effort of opening his mouth is evident when they slide their tongue in but he closes his eyes as they do so, and they feel some measure of peace exuding from him.

They pull away, sitting up on their elbows to gaze down on him, sunken eyes and sunken cheeks. "Were you buried in this?"

Fingers moving down, they fiddle with a particularly threadbare spot on his collar. "It seems old. If I'd known this was all you had I would've picked you something up, you know."

The idea of Lautrec accepting something they'd looted off of another dead body is laughable, but they can say anything they want now. He squints at them, slowly, as if he can't quite place their face, and seems surprised all over again when they bend back down. Their hands work through the knots in his hair over and over, smoothing it down and away from his face, behind his ear, repeated so many times they're afraid it might start falling out.

Deciding the moment needs to end, they sit back on their calves. "I gave her back her soul, by the way. I thought you'd want to know what happened to your prize. Does that surprise you?"

Leaning in once more, lips brushing his ear, they drop their voice to an almost imperceptible whisper.

He closes his eyes, and attempts something close to a swallow.

There is no spoken reply, of course, and after a few moments they gently grab him by the shoulders and lean him back up against the wall in a slightly more dignified position. His head droops against his shoulder, eyes still slightly open, and after a bit of dithering they begin the work of separating his left ringfinger from his body.


End file.
